During the war sales of comics containing superheroes was at a high, with the likes of the Hangman, the Fighting Yank and Captain Midnight fighting the Nazi hordes. But after the end of hostilities sales of comics began to plummet. However, one of the comic book titles that bucked the trend was Crime Does Not Pay published by Lev Gleason.

Crime Does Not Pay, first hit the comic books stands in 1942, it was a continuation from Gleason's Silver Streak and retained the sequence numbering starting at issue #22. The title was created by two comic book legends Charles Biro and Bob Wood. The pages contained much violence and gore, the bloodier the better.

It became a huge hit, with sales constantly growing until they reached close to a million in 1948. Other publishers began to take note of the title's success and started launching imitations. This brought an increase in the violence as each title tried to outdo the others. In a strike back at the competition in April 1948, Biro and Wood launched another crime comic with the title, Crime and Punishment. It was for all intents and purposes a clone of Crime Does Not Pay. It too was a success and ran until issue #74 in August 1955.

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